Drivers who leave their engines running when parked risk a £40 fine from next year.
Signs are now going up across the city ready for enforcement to start on Tuesday, 2 January.
Brighton and Hove councillors agreed to start issuing the fines last June to help tackle air pollution.
Drivers can be fined if their idling cars are in a parking bay, taxi rank and other parts of the road, but the new rule doesn’t apply to sitting in traffic.
The fine is reduced to £20 if paid within 10 days.
Councillor Tim Rowkins, chair of the City Environment, South Downs and The Sea Committee said: “Improving the city’s air quality is extremely important, especially for those who suffer from long term respiratory conditions like asthma and lung disease.
“Enforcing engine idling is something we hope will deter motorists from releasing harmful emissions unnecessarily. We’re asking those parked up to switch off their engines and reduce air pollution.”
If an environmental enforcement officer witnesses a car idling, they’ll speak to the driver to let them know they’re committing an offence.
They’ll take the drivers details, including their registration number, and issue them with a fixed penalty notice.
If the driver refuses to give their details or drives off, the council will contact Sussex Police to collect the details and the FPN will be sent in the post.
An idling engine can produce up to twice as many exhaust emissions as an engine in motion. Exhaust emissions contain a range of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter.
Do they really think Sussex Police has enough time to be sending FPN’s for idling!!!!! What planet are these people on?
Read the article.
Police aren’t enforcing this. Council enforcement officers will
So how do I demist my screen so I can safely drive away?
In cold weather I need to run the car for a minute or two so I can safely see. I assume the law to be able to safely see through the screen is applied before this new one.
Good point. It’s obviously going to take some intelligent enforcement.
I do regularly see vehicles with engines running and drivers having their lunch or having an extended chat on the phone, so I would like to see that change.
Demisting, or by extension any preparation to drive, does not count as idling.
Another fantastic idea to screw money out of the motorist, brought to you by those nice intelligent people in BHCC transport department. Imbeciles.
Yet oh so easy to avoid by not idling your engine whilst parked.
Yeah, pretty imbecilic of the council to think that you could do the tiniest thing for other road users. Instead of whinging about the fine, why not turn off your engine? Is that really too much to ask?
You obviously didn’t read the last paragraph before your outrage took hold
Great news. Please enforce this at Preston Park Station.
I came to the comments to say, Preston park station!! All the time!!
So why then do they reduce traffic flow on the seafront by installing the ridiculous 2nd cycle lane 😠
how long can an idle be before a driver be penalised?
I haven’t read up this specifically, but most things are usually after a “reasonable observation period.”
Aside from being bad for the environment, idling cars are an absolute nightmare for residents who live near taxi ranks and train stations. Will be great to see this enforced, not least to annoy the selfish commentators on here who think it’s acceptable.
So when temp is below freezing they want occupants inc pets to freeze maybe get hypothermia when they maybe waiting for someone to arrive e.g. at a rail station which is usually late. The windows will take even longer to demist then WITH the engine running. Dumb clowns are running our Councils and Parliament.
If they freeze, there’s no maybe about it, they have hypothermia, Alice. Silliness aside demisting is not idling.
Maybe wear a jumper
And what about the buses? The council would make a fortune with a crackdown at Churchill Square where the bunching up of buses is a permanent feature. It would help to pay off the £11 million debt left by the Greens.
Buses are hybrid, and do have a start/stop function, so waiting at a bus stop is not classed as idling.
Not sure where you’re going with this one.
If Buses are to sit at their bus stop for more than two minutes, engines should be switched off.
If a vehicle is waiting in traffic, there’s no requirement for engine to be off.
Bunching, a ‘gift’ from the ‘Greens’ with their road narrowing and moving bus stops closer together idea. North Street a prime example.
You mean the £3m overspend caused by in-year inflation? Pales into insignificance compared to the £30m overspend that the Greens inherited from Labour after they collapsed in 2020.
Other way around I think you mean, the overspend was inherited by Labour from the Greens!
Nope, the Greens did NOT leave A £30m debt for Labour.
I think you will find that, in fact, Greens left a £30 million shortfall for Labour. It was also not found out about immediately because the mismanagement was that severe, instead it was a surprise for the new Labour council.
It was very well covered on this website.
Think you will find the Greens were in office before the last elections.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Highway Code Rule 123: drivers must not leave a parked vehicle unattended with the engine running or leave a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while the vehicle is stationary on a public road.
See the RAC website under “Advice” on “why idling is so bad for the environment”
Typical council pick on the motorist waste money on brand new vehicles a dustcart should last for 10 we will have brand new ones can’t afford all the bills coming in so kill the poor old motorist as easy as having a cash point in your pocket WRONG PEOPLE I CHARGE
The fines are easily avoidable by not idling your engine.
Don’t want a speeding fine then don’t speed.
Don’t want a parking fine then don’t park where you shouldn’t
if a motorist is stupid enough to do those things then they deserve to be fined.
And you know what every day millions of motorists don’t get fined because they don’t do things that will get them fined.
Every fine day, I enjoy not being fined for not doing stupid things that would get me fined, and that’s fine by me.
some countries starv, so other can waste..
buy yu can leave dog in car,
with AC on..
Couldn’t make this crap up Brighton council are a bunch of nutters
Over spending our Money. 😂 let’s do a fixed penalty for that that will claw some back. Not long now for the CONGESTION CHARGE. our entire council runners are doing well in over paid jobs. Well done. Absolute pits all of them. Perhaps we can fine them soon for over spending our tax money.
Not paying. End of.
See you in court.
Did you…did you just challenge yourself to legal proceedings? Oh, Barry…
What are you on Benjy boy?
The council can take me to court if they think they have a right to fine me for using my lawfully-owned vehicle which THEY have intentionally jammed up with their own traffic slowing schemes.
I’m teasing you on your semantics and grammatical structure, don’t worry about it.
Here’s a bombshell for you. You agreed to obey all road rules including parking when you signed that piece of paper and got your driver’s license, good luck with that one.
Oh Barry…you are a silly bean, aren’t you?
“wah wah wah” – motorists
And that comes from the biggest cry baby, I sure hope you don’t need an ambulance one day (I suppose you should walk with a health card saying if it’s not an EV ambulance, leave me in the gutter).
Hey, don’t talk about my ambulances. Plus, blue light vehicles have a specific exemption for idling with the engine on!
I should hope so, but for the greeny brigade I’m guessing they’d opt for all running on charge. Emergency calls, ambulance still needs 15mins on the plug. Oh well the waiting time is long enough anyway…
We generally don’t use them, the range on them isn’t really enough for the milage and out of area travel we have to do.
I’m guessing they don’t understand that it is actually necessary in cold weather conditions to warm up a car’s engine before driving lessons off given you have more chance of a breakdown? Not to mention the need to actually clear your screen so one can see…
And by the way Brighton and Hove EV cars themselves aren’t all that green considering the manufacturing process is the equivalent of a new petrol car plus 60k miles. Lithium mining itself is very toxic on the environment, but I guess ironically the lefty greeny morons running the council couldn’t give a toss for those youngsters paid a pittance to mining in Africa and China (without protective clothing).
These idiotcrats have long needed to be disposed of and not recycled.